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Saturday, April 19, 2008

[REC], REC, Wreck, Record, Arr Eee See

Honestly, I'm not sure how you are supposed to refer to this movie.... I've been calling it record, some people have been just saying the letters (arr eee see) and some people have been calling it rec (wreck). Despite not being sure what to call it, most can agree that [REC] is an awesome movie.

Short but sweet, [REC] clocks in at 85 minutes. The viewer follows a tiny TV film crew of Angela(the reporter girl) and Pablo(camera dude) in Barcelona as they shadow two firefighters(bomberos en espanol) as they go on a routine call at an apartment building. The call becomes less routine once the biting and carnage begins. What started out as a dull night quickly escalates to a fight and flight for life fright fest.

tl;dr version: much better than I expected and I can't wait for it to be released here. Almost right after I finished it, I wanted to watch it and get scared all over again. That's not something that normally happens for me.

And another thing that doesn't happen too much: getting scared at horror movies. I love horror movies; the vast majority of my movies are either horror or have horror as a sub genre. Perhaps I've been desensitized through over-viewing. The lists of movies that have made me a bit paranoid after viewing is pretty decent. But the lists of movies that have actually frightened me is much smaller. And the lists of movies that have me gripping the arm of the chair, forgetting to breathe over the adrenaline rush or shrieking like a little girl are very few.

Welcome, [REC]. You have made it to the top.

I've heard a few people refer to [REC] as a Cloverfield rip-off, which is simply not true.Cloverfield = monster movie[REC] = zombie movieGranted, both use the handi-cam medium for visualization but the genres are different. And Cloverfield isn't the first movie to use the handi-cam/first person view to build mood and heighten anxiety. Besides, it's a useful tool and there's nothing wrong with sharing.

Oh, and FYI,[REC] was released in November 2007, Cloverfield was released January 2008. Unless the Spanish have perfected time travel, traveled to January 2008, watched Cloverfield, then traveled back to 2007 and made a different genre movie, I don't really think there's any 'ripping-off' going on.

On a crappy note, there's to be a [REC] remake called Quarantine. And what I've seen so far, it looks like nothing more than an American carbon copy.